The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno]
by
Dante Aligheri
Part 1 out of 3
Etext scanned by Dianne Bean of Phoenix, Arizona.
The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno]
by Dante Aligheri
Translated by Charles Eliot Norton
HELL
To
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
E come sare' io sense lui corso?
It is a happiness for me to connect this volume with the memory
of my friend and master from youth. I was but a beginner in the
study of the Divine Comedy when I first had his incomparable aid
in the understanding of it. During the last year of his life he
read the proofs of this volume, to what great advantage to my
work may readily be conceived.
When, in the early summer of this year, the printing of the
Purgatory began, though illness made it an exertion to him, he
continued this act of friendship, and did not cease till, at the
fifth canto, he laid down the pencil forever from his dear and
honored hand.
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS,
1 October, 1891
The text followed in this translation is, in general, that of
Witte. In a few cases I have preferred the readings which the
more recent researches of the Rev. Dr. Edward Moore, of Oxford,
seem to have established as correct.
CONTENTS
CANTO I. Dante, astray in a wood, reaches the foot of a hill
which he begins to ascend; he is hindered by three beasts; he
turns back and is met by Virgil, who proposes to guide him into
the eternal world.
CANTO II. Dante, doubtful of his own powers, is discouraged at
the outset.--Virgil cheers him by telling him that he has been
sent to his aid by a blessed Spirit from Heaven.--Dante casts off
fear, and the poets proceed.
CANTO III. The gate of Hell. Virgil leads Dante in.--The
punishment of the neither good nor bad.--Acheron, and the sinners
on its bank.--Charon.--Earthquake.--Dante swoons.
CANTO IV. The further side of Acheron.--Virgil leads Dante into
Limbo, the First Circle of Hell, containing the spirits of those
who lived virtuously but without Christianity.--Greeting of
Virgil by his fellow poets.--They enter a castle, where are the
shades of ancient worthies.--Virgil and Dante depart.
CANTO V. The Second Circle: Carnal sinners.--Minos.--Shades
renowned of old.--Francesca da Rimini.
CANTO VI. The Third Circle: the Gluttonous.--Cerberus.--Ciacco.
CANTO VII. The Fourth Circle: the Avaricious and the Prodigal.--
Pluto.--Fortune.--The Styx.--The Fifth Circle: the Wrathful and
the Sullen.
CANTO VIII. The Fifth Circle.--Phlegyas and his boat.--Passage of
the Styx.--Filippo Argenti.--The City of Dis.--The demons refuse
entrance to the poets.
CANTO IX. The City of Dis.--Eriehtho.--The Three Furies.--The
Heavenly Messenger.--The Sixth Circle: Heresiarchs.
CANTO X. The Sixth Circle: Heresiarchs.--Farinata degli Uberti.--
Cavalcante Cavalcanti.--Frederick II.
CANTO XI. The Sixth Circle: Heretics.--Tomb of Pope Anastasius.--
Discourse of Virgil on the divisions of the lower Hell.
CANTO XII. First round of the Seventh Circle: those who do
violence to others.--Tyrants and Homicides.--The Minotaur.--The
Centaurs.--Chiron.--Nessus.--The River of Boiling Blood, and the
Sinners in it.
CANTO XIII. Second round of the Seventh Circle: those who have
done violence to themselves and to their goods.--The Wood of
Self-murderers.--The Harpies.--Pier della Vigne.--Lano of Siena
and others.
CANTO XIV. Third round of the Seventh Circle those who have done
violence to God.--The Burning Sand.--Capaneus.--Figure of the Old
Man in Crete.--The Rivers of Hell.
CANTO XV. Third round of the Seventh Circle: those who have done
violence to Nature.--Brunetto Latini.--Prophecies of misfortune
to Dante.
CANTO XVI. Third round of the Seventh Circle: those who have done
violence to Nature.--Guido Guerra, Tegghiaio Aldobrandi and
Jacopo Rusticucci.--The roar of Phlegethon as it pours downward.--
The cord thrown into the abyss.
CANTO XVII. Third round of the Seventh Circle: those who have
done violence to Art.--Geryon.--The Usurers.--Descent to the
Eighth Circle.
CANTO XVIII. Eighth Circle: the first pit: Panders and Seducers.--
Venedico Caccianimico.--Jason.--Second pit: false flatterers.--
Alessio Interminei.--Thais.
CANTO XIX. Eighth Circle: third pit: Simonists.--Pope Nicholas
III
CANTO XX. Eighth Circle: fourth pit: Diviners, Soothsayers, and
Magicians.--Amphiaraus.--Tiresias.--Aruns.--Manto.--Eurypylus.--
Michael Scott.--Asolente.
CANTO XXI. Eighth Circle: fifth pit: Barrators.--A magistrate of
Lucca.--The Malebranche.--Parley with them.
CANTO XXII. Eighth Circle: fifth pit: Barrators.--Ciampolo of
Navarre.--Brother Gomita.--Michael Zanche.--Fray of the
Malebranche.
CANTO XXIII. Eighth Circle. Escape from the fifth pit.--The sixth
pit: Hypocrites.--The Jovial Friars.--Caiaphas.--Annas.--Frate
Catalano.
CANTO XXIV. Eighth Circle. The poets climb from the sixth pit.--
Seventh pit: Fraudulent Thieves.--Vanni Fucci.--Prophecy of
calamity to Dante.
CANTO XXV. Eighth Circle: seventh pit: Fraudulent Thieves.--
Cacus.--Agnello Brunellesehi and others.
CANTO XXVI. Eighth Circle: eighth pit: Fraudulent Counsellors.--
Ulysses and Diomed.
CANTO XXVII. Eighth Circle: eighth pit: Fraudulent Counsellors.--
Guido da Montefeltro.
CANTO XXVIII. Eighth Circle: ninth pit: Sowers of discord and
schism.--Mahomet and Ali.--Fra Dolcino.--Pier da Medicina.--
Curio.--Mosca.--Bertran de Born.
CANTO XXIX. Eighth Circle: ninth pit.--Geri del Bello.--Tenth
pit: Falsifiers of all sorts.--Griffolino of Mezzo.--Capocchio.
CANTO XXX. Eighth Circle: tenth pit: Falsifiers of all sorts.--
Myrrha.--Gianni Schiechi.--Master Adam.--Sinon of Troy.
CANTO XXXI. The Giants around the Eighth Circle.--Nimrod.--
Ephialtes.--Antiens sets the Poets down in the Ninth Circle.
CANTO XXXII. Ninth Circle: Traitors. First ring: Caina.--Counts
of Mangona.--Camicion de' Pazzi.--Second ring: Antenora.--Bocca
degli Abati.--Buoso da Duera.--Count Ugolino.
CANTO XXXIII. Ninth Circle: Traitors. Second ring: Antenora.--
Count Ugolino.--Third ring: Ptolomaea.--Brother Alberigo.--Branca
d' Oria.
CANTO XXXIV. Ninth Circle: Traitors. Fourth ring: Judecca.--
Lucifer.--Judas, Brutus and Cassius.--Centre of the universe.--
Passage from Hell.--Ascent to the surface of the Southern
hemisphere.
INTRODUCTION.
So many versions of the Divine Comedy exist in English that a new
one might well seem needless. But most of these translations are
in verse, and the intellectual temper of our time is impatient of
a transmutation in which substance is sacrificed for form's sake,
and the new form is itself different from the original. The
conditions of verse in different languages vary so widely as to
make any versified translation of a poem but an imperfect
reproduction of the archetype. It is like an imperfect mirror
that renders but a partial likeness, in which essential features
are blurred or distorted. Dante himself, the first modern critic,
declared that "nothing harmonized by a musical bond can be
transmuted from its own speech without losing all its sweetness
and harmony," and every fresh attempt at translation affords a
new proof of the truth of his assertion. Each language exhibits
its own special genius in its poetic forms. Even when they are
closely similar in rhythmical method their poetic effect is
essentially different, their individuality is distinct. The
hexameter of the Iliad is not the hexameter of the Aeneid. And if
this be the case in respect to related forms, it is even more
obvious in respect to forms peculiar to one language, like the
terza rima of the Italian, for which it is impossible to find a
satisfactory equivalent in another tongue.
If, then, the attempt be vain to reproduce the form or to
represent its effect in a translation, yet the substance of a
poem may have such worth that it deserves to be known by readers
who must read it in their own tongue or not at all. In this case
the aim of the translator should he to render the substance
fully, exactly, and with as close a correspondence to the tone
and style of the original as is possible between prose and
poetry. Of the charm, of the power of the poem such a translation
can give but an inadequate suggestion; the musical bond was of
its essence, and the loss of the musical bond is the loss of the
beauty to which form and substance mutually contributed, and in
which they were both alike harmonized and sublimated. The
rhythmic life of the original is its vital spirit, and the
translation losing this vital spirit is at best as the dull
plaster cast to the living marble or the breathing bronze. The
intellectual substance is there; and if the work be good,
something of the emotional quality may be conveyed; the
imagination may mould the prose as it moulded the verse,--but,
after all, "translations are but as turn-coated things at best,"
as Howell said in one of his Familiar Letters.
No poem in any tongue is more informed with rhythmic life than
the Divine Comedy. And yet, such is its extraordinary
distinction, no poem has an intellectual and emotional substance
more independent of its metrical form. Its complex structure, its
elaborate measure and rhyme, highly artificial as they are, are
so mastered by the genius of the poet as to become the most
natural expression of the spirit by which the poem is inspired;
while at the same time the thought and sentiment embodied in the
verse is of such import, and the narrative of such interest, that
they do not lose their worth when expressed in the prose of
another tongue; they still haye power to quicken imagination, and
to evoke sympathy.
In English there is an excellent prose translation of the
Inferno, by Dr. John Carlyle, a man well known to the reader of
his brother's Correspondence. It was published forty years ago,
but it is still contemporaneous enough in style to answer every
need, and had Dr. Carlyle made a version of the whole poem I
should hardly have cared to attempt a new one. In my translation
of the Inferno I am often Dr. Carlyle's debtor. His conception of
what a translation should be is very much the same as my own. Of
the Purgatorio there is a prose version which has excellent
qualities, by Mr. W. S. Dugdale. Another version of great merit,
of both the Purgatorio and Paradiso, is that of Mr. A. J. Butler.
It is accompanied by a scholarly and valuable comment, and I owe
much to Mr. Butler's work. But through what seems to me
occasional excess of literal fidelity his English is now and then
somewhat crabbed. "He overacts the office of an interpreter," I
cite again from Howell, "who doth enslave himself too strictly to
words or phrases. One may be so over-punctual in words that he
may mar the matter."
I have tried to be as literal in my translation as was consistent
with good English, and to render Dante's own words in words as
nearly correspondent to them as the difference in the languages
would permit. But it is to be remembered that the familiar uses
and subtle associations which give to words their full meaning
are never absolutely the same in two languages. Love in English
not only SOUNDS but IS different from amor in Latin, or amore in
Italian. Even the most felicitous prose translation must fail
therefore at times to afford the entire and precise meaning of
the original.
Moreover, there are difficulties in Dante's poem for Italians,
and there are difficulties in the translation for English
readers. These, where it seemed needful, I have endeavored to
explain in brief footnotes. But I have desired to avoid
distracting the attention of the reader from the narrative, and
have mainly left the understanding of it to his good sense and
perspicacity. The clearness of Dante's imaginative vision is so
complete, and the character of his narration of it so direct and
simple, that the difficulties in understanding his intention are
comparatively few.
It is a noticeable fact that in by far the greater number of
passages where a doubt in regard to the interpretation exists,
the obscurity lies in the rhyme-word. For with all the abundant
resources of the Italian tongue in rhyme, and with all Dante's
mastery of them, the truth still is that his triple rhyme often
compelled him to exact from words such service as they did not
naturally render and as no other poet had required of them. The
compiler of the Ottimo Commento records, in an often-cited
passage, that "I, the writer, heard Dante say that never a rhyme
had led him to say other than he would, but that many a time and
oft he had made words say for him what they were not wont to
express for other poets." The sentence has a double truth, for it
indicates not only Dante's incomparable power to compel words to
give out their full meaning, but also his invention of new uses
for them, his employment of them in unusual significations or in
forms hardly elsewhere to be found. These devices occasionally
interfere with the limpid flow of his diction, but the
difficulties of interpretation to which they give rise serve
rather to mark the prevailing clearness and simplicity of his
expression than seriously to impede its easy and unperplexed
current. There are few sentences in the Divina Commedia in which
a difficulty is occasioned by lack of definiteness of thought or
distinctness of image.
A far deeper-lying and more pervading source of imperfect
comprehension of the poem than any verbal difficulty exists in
the double or triple meaning that runs through it. The narrative
of the poet's spiritual journey is so vivid and consistent that
it has all the reality of an account of an actual experience; but
within and beneath runs a stream of allegory not less consistent
and hardly less continuous than the narrative itself. To the
illustration and carrying out of this interior meaning even the
minutest details of external incident are made to contribute,
with an appropriateness of significance, and with a freedom from
forced interpretation or artificiality of construction such as no
other writer of allegory has succeeded in attaining. The poem may
be read with interest as a record of experience without attention
to its inner meaning, but its full interest is only felt when
this inner meaning is traced, and the moral significance of the
incidents of the story apprehended by the alert intelligence. The
allegory is the soul of the poem, but like the soul within the
body it does not show itself in independent existence. It is, in
scholastic phrase, the form of the body, giving to it its special
individuality. Thus in order truly to understand and rightly
appreciate the poem the reader must follow its course with a
double intelligence. "Taken literally," as Dante declares in his
Letter to Can Grande, "the subject is the state of the soul after
death, simply considered. But, allegorically taken, its subject
is man, according as by his good or ill deserts he renders
himself liable to the reward or punishment of Justice." It is the
allegory of human life; and not of human life as an abstraction,
but of the individual life; and herein, as Mr. Lowell, whose
phrase I borrow, has said, "lie its profound meaning and its
permanent force." [1] And herein too lie its perennial freshness
of interest, and the actuality which makes it contemporaneous
with every successive generation. The increase of knowledge, the
loss of belief in doctrines that were fundamental in Dante's
creed, the changes in the order of society, the new thoughts of
the world, have not lessened the moral import of the poem, any
more than they have lessened its excellence as a work of art. Its
real substance is as independent as its artistic beauty, of
science, of creed, and of institutions. Human nature has not
changed; the motives of action are the same, though their
relative force and the desires and ideals by which they are
inspired vary from generation to generation. And thus it is that
the moral judgments of life framed by a great poet whose
imagination penetrates to the core of things, and who, from his
very nature as poet, conceives and sets forth the issues of life
not in a treatise of abstract morality, but by means of sensible
types and images, never lose interest, and have a perpetual
contemporaneousness. They deal with the permanent and unalterable
elements of the soul of man.
[1] Mr. Lowell's essay on Dante makes other writing about the
poet or the poem seem ineffectual and superfluous. I must assume
that it will be familiar to the readers of my version, at least
to those among them who desire truly to understand the Divine
Comedy.
The scene of the poem is the spiritual world, of which we are
members even while still denizens mu the world of time. In the
spiritual world the results of sin or perverted love, and of
virtue or right love, in this life of probation, are manifest.
The life to come is but the fulfilment of the life that now is.
This is the truth that Dante sought to enforce. The allegory in
which he cloaked it is of a character that separates the Divine
Comedy from all other works of similar intent, In The Pilgrim's
Progress, for example, the personages introduced are mere
simulacra of men and women, the types of moral qualities or
religious dispositions. They are abstractions which the genius of
Bunyan fails to inform with vitality sufficient to kindle the
imagination of the reader with a sense of their actual, living
and breathing existence. But in the Divine Comedy the personages
are all from real life, they are men and women with their natural
passions and emotions, and they are undergoing an actual
experience. The allegory consists in making their characters and
their fates, what all human characters and fates really are, the
types and images of spiritual law. Virgil and Beatrice, whose
nature as depicted in the poem makes nearest approach to purely
abstract and typical existence, are always consistently presented
as living individuals, exalted indeed in wisdom and power, but
with hardly less definite and concrete humanity than that of
Dante himself.
The scheme of the created Universe held by the Christians of the
Middle Ages was comparatively simple, and so definite that Dante,
in accepting it in its main features without modification, was
provided with the limited stage that was requisite for his
design, and of which the general disposition was familiar to all
his readers. The three spiritual realms had their local bounds
marked out as clearly as those of time earth itself. Their
cosmography was but an extension of the largely hypothetical
geography of the tune.
The Earth was the centre of the Universe, and its northern
hemisphere was the abode of man. At the middle point of this
hemisphere stood Jerusalem, equidistant from the Pillars of
Hercules on the West, and the Ganges on the East.
Within the body of this hemisphere was hell, shared as a vast
cone, of which the apex was the centre of the globe; and here,
according to Dante, was the seat of Lucifer. The concave of Hell
had been formed by his fall, when a portion of the solid earth,
through fear of him, ran back to the southern uninhabited
hemisphere, and formed there, directly antipodal to Jerusalem,
the mountain of Purgatory which rose from the waste of waters
that covered this half of the globe. Purgatory was shaped as a
cone, of similar dimensions to that of Hell, amid at its summit
was the Terrestrial Paradise.
Immediately surrounding the atmosphere of the Earth was the
sphere of elemental fire. Around this was the Heaven of the Moon,
and encircling this, in order, were the Heavens of Mercury,
Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jove, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, and the
Crystalline or first moving Heaven. These nine concentric Heavens
revolved continually around the Earth, and in proportion to their
distance from it was time greater swiftness of each. Encircling
all was the Empyrean, increate, incorporeal, motionless,
unbounded in time or space, the proper seat of God, the home of
the Angels, the abode of the Elect.
The Angelic Hierarchy consisted of nine orders, corresponding to
the nine moving heavens. Their blessedness and the swiftness of
time motion with which in unending delight they circled around
God were in proportion to their nearness to Him, --first the
Seraphs, then the Cherubs, Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Powers,
Princes, Archangels, and Angels. Through them, under the general
name of Intelligences, the Divine influence was transmitted to
the Heavens, giving to them their circular motion, which was the
expression of their longing to be united with the source of their
creation. The Heavens in their turn streamed down upon the Earth
the Divine influence thus distributed among them, in varying
proportion and power, producing divers effects in the generation
and corruption of material things, and in the dispositions and
the lives of men.
Such was the general scheme of the Universe. The intention of God
in its creation was to communicate of his own perfection to the
creatures endowed with souls, that is, to men and to angels, and
the proper end of every such creature was to seek its own
perfection in likeness to time Divine. This end was attained
through that knowledge of God of which the soul was capable, and
through love which was in proportion to knowledge. Virtue
depended on the free will of man; it was the good use of that
will directed to a right object of love. Two lights were given to
the soul for guidance of the will: the light of reason for
natural things and for the direction of the will to moral virtue
the light of grace for things supernatural, and for the direction
of the will to spiritual virtue. Sin was the opposite of virtue,
the choice by the will of false objects of love; it involved the
misuse of reason, and the absence of grace. As the end of virtue
was blessedness, so the end of sin was misery.
The cornerstone of Dante's moral system was the Freedom of the
Will; in other words, the right of private judgment with the
condition of accountability. This is the liberty which Dante,
that is man, goes seeking in his journey through the spiritual
world. This liberty is to be attained through the right use of
reason, illuminated by Divine Grace; it consists in the perfect
accord of the will of man with the will of God.
With this view of the nature and end of man Dante's conception of
the history of the race could not be other than that its course
was providentially ordered. The fall of man had made him a just
object of the vengeance of God; but the elect were to be
redeemed, and for their redemption the history of the world from
the beginning was directed. Not only in his dealings with the
Jews, but in his dealings with the heathen was God preparing for
the reconciliation of man, to be finally accomplished in his
sacrifice of Himself for them. The Roman Empire was foreordained
and established for this end. It was to prepare the way for the
establishment of the Roman Church. It was the appointed
instrument for the political governument of men. Empire and
Church were alike divine institutions for the guidance of man on
earth.
The aim of Dante in the Divine Comedy was to set forth these
truths in such wise as to affect the imaginations and touch the
hearts of men, so that they should turn to righteousness. His
conviction of these truths was no mere matter of belief; it had
the ardor and certainty of faith. They had appeared to him in all
their fulness as a revelation of the Divine wisdom. It was his
work as poet, as poet with a divine commission, to make this
revelation known. His work was a work of faith; it was sacred; to
it both Heaven and Earth had set their hands.
To this work, as I have said, the definiteness and the limits of
the generally accepted theory of the Universe gave the required
frame. The very narrowness of this scheme made Dante's design
practicable. He had had the experience of a man on earth. He had
been lured by false objects of desire from the pursuit of the
true good. But Divine Grace, in the form of Beatrice, who had of
old on earth led him aright, now intervened and sent to his aid
Virgil, who, as the type of Human Reason, should bring him safe
through Hell, showing to him the eternal consequences of sin, and
then should conduct him, penitent, up the height of Purgatory,
till on its summit, in the Earthly Paradise, Beatrice should
appear once more to him. Thence she, as the type of that
knowledge through which comes the love of God, should lead him,
through the Heavens up to the Empyrean, to the consummation of
his course in the actual vision of God.
AIDS TO THE STUDY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY.
The Essay by Mr. Lowell, to which I have already referred (Dante,
Lowell's Prose Works, vol. iv.) is the best introduction to the
study of the poem. It should be read and re-read.
Dante, an essay by the late Dean Church, is the work of a learned
and sympathetic scholar, and is an excellent treatise on the
life, times, and work of the poet.
The Notes and Illustrations that accompany Mr. Longfellow's
translation of the Divine Comedy form an admirable body of
comment on the poem.
The Rev. Dr. Edward Moore's little volume, on The Time-References
in the Divina Cominedia (London, 1887), is of great value in
making the progress of Dante's journey clear, and in showing
Dante's scrupulous consistency of statement. Dr. Moore's more
recent work, Contributions to the Textual Criticism of the Divina
Commedia (Cambridge, 1889), is to be warmly commended to the
advanced student.
These sources of information are enough for the mere English
reader. But one who desires to make himself a thorough master of
the poem must turn to foreign sources of instruction: to Carl
Witte's invaluable Dante-Forschungen (2 vols. Halle, 1869); to
the comment, especially that on the Paradiso, which accompanies
the German translation of the Divine Comedy by Philalethes. the
late King John of Saxony; to Bartoli's life of Dante in his
Storia della Letteratura Italiana (Firenze, 1878 and subsequent
years), and to Scartazzini's Prolegomeni della Divina Commedia
(Leipzig, 1890). The fourteenth century Comments, especially
those of Boccaccio, of Buti, and of Benvenuto da Imola, are
indispensable to one who would understand the poem as it was
understood by Dante's immediate contemporaries and successors. It
is from them and from the Chronicle of Dante's contemporary and
fellow-citizen, Giovanni Villani, that our knowledge concerning
many of the personages mentioned in the Poem is derived.
In respect to the theology and general doctrine of the Poem, the
Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas is the main source from
which Dante himself drew.
Of editions of the Divina Commedia in Italian, either that of
Andreoli, or of Bianchi, or of Fraticelli, each in one volume,
may be recommended to the beginner. Scartazzini's edition in
three volumes is the best, in spite of some serious defects, for
the deeper student.
HELL.
CANTO I. Dante, astray in a wood, reaches the foot of a hill
which he begins to ascend; he is hindered by three beasts; he
turns back and is met by Virgil, who proposes to guide him into
the eternal world.
Midway upon the road of our life I found myself within a dark
wood, for the right way had been missed. Ah! how hard a thing it
is to tell what this wild and rough and dense wood was, which in
thought renews the fear! So bitter is it that death is little
more. But in order to treat of the good that there I found, I
will tell of the other things that I have seen there. I cannot
well recount how I entered it, so full was I of slumber at that
point where I abandoned the true way. But after I had arrived at
the foot of a hill, where that valley ended which had pierced my
heart with fear, I looked on high, and saw its shoulders clothed
already with the rays of the planet[1] that leadeth men aright
along every path. Then was the fear a little quieted which in the
lake of my heart had lasted through the night that I passed so
piteously. And even as one who with spent breath, issued out of
the sea upon the shore, turns to the perilous water and gazes, so
did my soul, which still was flying, turn back to look again upon
the pass which never had a living person left.
[1] The sun, a planet according to the Ptolemaic system.
After I had rested a little my weary body I took my way again
along the desert slope, so that the firm foot was always the
lower. And ho! almost at the beginning of the steep a
she-leopard, light and very nimble, which was covered with a
spotted coat. And she did not move from before my face, nay,
rather hindered so my road that to return I oftentimes had
turned.
The time was at the beginning of the morning, and the Sun was
mounting upward with those stars that were with him when Love
Divine first set in motion those beautiful things;[1] so that the
hour of the time and the sweet season were occasion of good hope
to me concerning that wild beast with the dappled skin. But not
so that the sight which appeared to me of a lion did not give me
fear. He seemed to be coming against me, with head high and with
ravening hunger, so that it seemed that the air was affrighted at
him. And a she-wolf,[2] who with all cravings seemed laden in her
meagreness, and already had made many folk to live forlorn,--she
caused me so much heaviness, with the fear that came from sight
of her, that I lost hope of the height And such as he is who
gaineth willingly, and the time arrives that makes him lose, who
in all his thoughts weeps and is sad,--such made me the beast
without repose that, coming on against me, little by little was
pushing me back thither where the Sun is silent.
[1] According to old tradition the spring was the season of the
creation.
[2] These three beasts correspond to the triple division of sins
into those of incontinence, of violence, and of fraud. See Canto
XI.
While I was falling back to the low place, before mine eyes
appeared one who through long silence seemed hoarse. When I saw
him in the great desert, "Have pity on me!" I cried to him,
"whatso thou art, or shade or real man." He answered me: "Not
man; man once I was, and my parents were Lombards, and Mantuans
by country both. I was born sub Julio, though late, and I lived
at Rome under the good Augustus, in the time of the false and
lying gods. Poet was I, and sang of that just son of Anchises who
came from Troy after proud Ilion had been burned. But thou, why
returnest thou to so great annoy? Why dost thou not ascend the
delectable mountain which is the source and cause of every joy?"
"Art thou then that Virgil and that fount which poureth forth so
large a stream of speech?" replied I to him with bashful front:
"O honor and light of the other poem I may the long seal avail
me, and the great love, which have made me search thy volume!
Thou art my master and my author; thou alone art he from whom I
took the fair style that hath done me honor. Behold the beast
because of which I turned; help me against her, famous sage, for
she makes any veins and pulses tremble." "Thee it behoves to hold
another course," he replied, when he saw me weeping, "if thou
wishest to escape from this savage place; for this beast, because
of which thou criest out, lets not any one pass along her way,
but so hinders him that she kills him! and she has a nature so
malign and evil that she never sates her greedy will, and after
food is hungrier than before. Many are the animals with which she
wives, and there shall be more yet, till the hound [1] shall come
that will make her die of grief. He shall not feed on land or
goods, but wisdom and love and valor, and his birthplace shall be
between Feltro and Feltro. Of that humble[2] Italy shall he be the
salvation, for which the virgin Camilla died, and Euryalus, Turnus
and Nisus of their wounds. He shall hunt her through every town
till he shall have set her back in hell, there whence envy first
sent her forth. Wherefore I think and deem it for thy best that
thou follow me, and I will be thy guide, and will lead thee hence
through the eternal place where thou shalt hear the despairing
shrieks, shalt see the ancient spirits woeful who each proclaim
the second death. And then thou shalt see those who are contented
in the fire, because they hope to come, whenever it may be, to the
blessed folk; to whom if thou wilt thereafter ascend, them shall be
a soul more worthy than I for that. With her I will leave thee at
my departure; for that Emperor who reigneth them above, because I
was rebellious to His law, wills not that into His city any one
should come through me. In all parts He governs and them He reigns:
there in His city and His lofty seat. O happy he whom thereto He
elects!" And I to him, "Poet, I beseech thee by that God whom thou
didst not know, in order that I may escape this ill and worse, that
thou lead me thither whom thou now hest said, so that I may see the
gate of St. Peter, and those whom thou makest so afflicted."
[1] Of whom the hound is the symbol, and to whom Dante looked for
the deliverance of Italy from the discorda and misrule that made
her wretched, is still matter of doubt, after centuries of
controversy.
[2] Fallen, humiliated.
Then he moved on, and I behind him kept.
CANTO II. Dante, doubtful of his own powers, is discouraged at
the outset.--Virgil cheers him by telling him that he has been
sent to his aid by a blessed Spirit from Heaven.--Dante casts off
fear, and the poets proceed.
The day was going, and the dusky air was taking the living things
that are on earth from their fatigues, and I alone was preparing
to sustain the war alike of the road, and of the woe which the
mind that erreth not shall retrace. O Muses, O lofty genius, now
assist me! O mind that didst inscribe that which I saw, here
shall thy nobility appear! I began:--"Poet, that guidest me,
consider my virtue, if it is sufficient, ere to the deep pass
thou trustest me. Thou sayest that the parent of Silvius while
still corruptible went to the immortal world and was there in the
body. Wherefore if the Adversary of every ill was then courteous,
thinking on the high effect that should proceed from him, and on
the Who and the What,[1] it seemeth not unmeet to the man of
understanding; for in the empyreal heaven he had been chosen for
father of revered Rome and of her empire; both which (to say
truth indeed) were ordained for the holy place where the
successor of the greater Peter hath his seat. Through this going,
whereof thou givest him vaunt, he learned things which were the
cause of his victory and of the papal mantle. Afterward the
Chosen Vessel went thither to bring thence comfort to that faith
which is the beginning of the way of salvation. But I, why go I
thither? or who concedes it? I am not Aeneas, I am not Paul; me
worthy of this, neither I nor others think; wherefore if I give
myself up to go, I fear lest the going may be mad. Thou art wise,
thou understandest better than I speak."
[1] Who he was, and what should result.
And as is he who unwills what he willed, and because of new
thoughts changes his design, so that he quite withdraws from
beginning, such I became on that dark hillside: wherefore in my
thought I abandoned the enterprise which had been so hasty in the
beginning.
"If I have rightly understood thy speech," replied that shade of
the magnanimous one, "thy soul is hurt by cowardice, which
oftentimes encumbereth a man so that it turns him back from
honorable enterprise, as false seeing does a beast when it is
startled. In order that thou loose thee from this fear I will
tell thee wherefore I have come, and what I heard at the first
moment that I grieved for thee. I was among those who are
suspended,[1] and a Lady called me, so blessed and beautiful that
I besought her to command. Her eyes were more lucent than the
star, and she began to speak to me sweet and low, with angelic
voice, in her own tongue: 'O courteous Mantuan soul, of whom the
fame yet lasteth in the world, and shall last so long as the
world endureth! a friend of mine and not of fortune upon the
desert hillside is so hindered on his road that he has turned for
fear, and I am afraid, through that which I have heard of him in
heaven, lest already he be so astray that I may have risen late
to his succor. Now do thou move, and with thy speech ornate, and
with whatever is needful for his deliverance, assist him so that
I may be consoled for him. I am Beatrice who make thee go. I come
from a place whither I desire to return. Love moved me, and makes
me speak. When I shall be before my Lord, I will commend thee
often unto Him.' Then she was silent, and thereon I began: 'O
Lady of Virtue, thou alone through whom the human race surpasseth
all contained within that heaven which hath the smallest circles!
[2] so pleasing unto me is thy command that to obey it, were it
already done, were slow to me. Thou hast no need further to
open unto me thy will; but tell me the cause why thou guardest
not thyself from descending down here into this centre, from the
ample place whither thou burnest to return.' 'Since thou wishest
to know so inwardly, I will tell thee briefly,' she replied to
me, 'wherefore I fear not to come here within. One ought to fear
those things only that have power of doing harm, the others not,
for they are not dreadful. I am made by God, thanks be to Him,
such that your misery toucheth me not, nor doth the flame of this
burning assail me. A gentle Lady[3] is in heaven who hath pity
for this hindrance whereto I send thee, so that stern judgment
there above she breaketh. She summoned Lucia in her request, and
said, "Thy faithful one now hath need of thee, and unto thee I
commend him." Lucia, the foe of every cruel one, rose and came to
the place where I was, seated with the ancient Rachel. She said,
"Beatrice, true praise of God, why dost thou not succor him who
so loved thee that for thee he came forth from the vulgar throng?
Dost thou not hear the pity of his plaint? Dost thou not see the
death that combats him beside the stream whereof the sea hath no
vaunt?" In the world never were persons swift to seek their good,
and to fly their harm, as I, after these words were uttered, came
here below, from my blessed seat, putting my trust in thy upright
speech, which honors thee and them who have heard it.' After she
had said this to me, weeping she turned her lucent eyes, whereby
she made me more speedy in coming. And I came to thee as she
willed. Thee have I delivered from that wild beast that took from
thee the short ascent of the beautiful mountain. What is it then?
Why, why dost thou hold back? why dost thou harbor such cowardice
in thy heart? why hast thou not daring and boldness, since three
blessed Ladies care for thee in the court of Heaven, and my
speech pledges thee such good?"
[1] In Limbo, neither in Hell nor Heaven.
[2] The heaven of the moon, nearest to the earth.
[3] The Virgin.
As flowerets, bent and closed by the chill of night, after the
sun shines on them straighten themselves all open on their stem,
so I became with my weak virtue, and such good daring hastened to
my heart that I began like one enfranchised: "Oh compassionate
she who succored me! and thou courteous who didst speedily obey
the true words that she addressed to thee! Thou by thy words hast
so disposed my heart with desire of going, that I have returned
unto my first intent. Go on now, for one sole will is in us both:
Thou Leader, thou Lord, and thou Master." Thus I said to him; and
when he had moved on, I entered along the deep and savage road.
CANTO III. The gate of Hell.--Virgil lends Dante in.--The
punishment of the neither good nor bad.--Aeheron, and the sinners
on its bank.--Charon.--Earthquake.--Dante swoons.
"Through me is the way into the woeful city; through me is the
way into eternal woe; through me is the way among the lost
people. Justice moved my lofty maker: the divine Power, the
supreme Wisdom and the primal Love made me. Before me were no
things created, unless eternal, and I eternal last. Leave every
hope, ye who enter!"
These words of color obscure I saw written at the top of a gate;
whereat I, "Master, their meaning is dire to me."
And he to me, like one who knew, "Here it behoves to leave every
fear; it behoves that all cowardice should here be dead. We have
come to the place where I have told thee that thou shalt see the
woeful people, who have lost the good of the understanding."
And when he had put his hand on mine, with a glad countenance,
wherefrom I took courage, he brought me within the secret things.
Here sighs, laments, and deep wailings were resounding though the
starless air; wherefore at first I wept thereat. Strange tongues,
horrible cries, words of woe, accents of anger, voices high and
hoarse, and sounds of hands with them, were making a tumult which
whirls forever in that air dark without change, like the sand
when the whirlwind breathes.
And I, who had my head girt with horror, said, "Master, what is
it that I hear? and what folk are they who seem in woe so
vanquished?"
And he to me, "This miserable measure the wretched souls maintain
of those who lived without infamy and without praise. Mingled are
they with that caitiff choir of the angels, who were not rebels,
nor were faithful to God, but were for themselves. The heavens
chased them out in order to be not less beautiful, nor doth the
depth of Hell receive them, because the damned would have some
glory from them."
And I, "Master, what is so grievous to them, that makes them
lament so bitterly?"
He answered, "I will tell thee very briefly. These have no hope
of death; and their blind life is so debased, that they are
envious of every other lot. Fame of them the world permitteth not
to be; mercy and justice disdain them. Let us not speak of them,
but do thou look and pass on."
And I, who was gazing, saw a banner, that whirling ran so swiftly
that it seemed to me to scorn all repose, and behind it came so
long a train of folk, that I could never have believed death had
undone so many. After I had distinguished some among them, I saw
and knew the shade of him who made, through cowardice, the great
refusal. [1] At once I understood and was certain, that this was
the sect of the caitiffs displeasing unto God, and unto his
enemies. These wretches, who never were alive, were naked, and
much stung by gad-flies and by wasps that were there. These
streaked their faces with blood, which, mingled with tears, was
harvested at their feet by loathsome worms.
[1] Who is intended by these words is uncertain.
And when I gave myself to looking onward, I saw people on the
bank of a great river; wherefore I said, "Master, now grant to me
that I may know who these are, and what rule makes them appear so
ready to pass over, as I discern through the faint light." And he
to me, "The things will be clear to thee, when we shall set our
steps on the sad marge of Acheron." Then with eyes bashful and
cast down, fearing lest my speech had been irksome to him, far as
to the river I refrained from speaking.
And lo! coming toward us in a boat, an old man, white with
ancient hair, crying, "Woe to you, wicked souls! hope not ever to
see Heaven! I come to carry you to the other bank, into eternal
darkness, to heat and frost. And thou who art there, living soul,
depart from these that are dead." But when he saw that I did not
depart, he said, "By another way, by other ports thou shalt come
to the shore, not here, for passage; it behoves that a lighter
bark bear thee."[1]
[1] The boat that bears the souls to Purgatory. Charon recognizes
that Dante is not among the damned.
And my Leader to him, "Charon, vex not thyself, it is thus willed
there where is power to do that which is willed; and farther ask
not." Then the fleecy cheeks were quiet of the pilot of the livid
marsh, who round about his eyes had wheels of flame.
But those souls, who were weary and naked, changed color, and
gnashed their teeth soon as they heard his cruel words. They
blasphemed God and their parents, the human race, the place, the
time and the seed of their sowing and of their birth. Then,
bitterly weeping, they drew back all of them together to the evil
bank, that waits for every man who fears not God. Charon the
demon, with eyes of glowing coal, beckoning them, collects them
all; he beats with his oar whoever lingers.
As in autumn the leaves fall off one after the other, till the
bough sees all its spoils upon the earth, in like wise the evil
seed of Adam throw themselves from that shore one by one at
signals, as the bird at his call. Thus they go over the dusky
wave, and before they have landed on the farther side, already on
this a new throng is gathered.
"My son," said the courteous Master, "those who die in the wrath
of God, all meet together here from every land. And they are
eager to pass over the stream, for the divine justice spurs them,
so that fear is turned to desire. This way a good soul never
passes; and therefore if Charon snarleth at thee, thou now mayest
well know what his speech signifies." This ended, the dark plain
trembled so mightily, that the memory of the terror even now
bathes me with sweat. The tearful land gave forth a wind that
flashed a vermilion light which vanquished every sense of mine,
and I fell as a man whom slumber seizes.
CANTO IV. The further side of Acheron.--Virgil leads Dante into
Limbo, the First Circle of Hell, containing the spirits of those
who lived virtuously but without Christianity.--Greeting of
Virgil by his fellow poets.--They enter a castle, where are the
shades of ancient worthies.--Virgil and Dante depart.
A heavy thunder broke the deep sleep in my head, so that I
started up like a person who by force is wakened. And risen
erect, I moved my rested eye round about, and looked fixedly to
distinguish the place where I was. True it is, that I found
myself on the verge of the valley of the woeful abyss that
gathers in thunder of infinite wailings. Dark, profound it was,
and cloudy, so that though I fixed my sight on the bottom I did
not discern anything there.
"Now we descend down here into the blind world," began the Poet
all deadly pale, "I will be first, and thou shalt be second."
And I, who had observed his color, said, "How shall I come, if
thou fearest, who art wont to be a comfort to my doubting?" And
he to me, "The anguish of the folk who are down here depicts upon
my face that pity which thou takest for fear. Let us go on, for
the long way urges us."
So he set forth, and so he made me enter within the first circle
that girds the abyss. Here, so far as could be heard, there was
no plaint but that of sighs which made the eternal air to
tremble: this came of the woe without torments felt by the
crowds, which were many and great, of infants and of women and of
men.
The good Master to me, "Thou dost not ask what spirits are these
that thou seest. Now I would have thee know, before thou goest
farther, that they sinned not; and if they have merits it
sufficeth not, because they had not baptism, which is part of the
faith that thou believest; and if they were before Christianity,
they did not duly worship God: and of such as these am I myself.
Through such defects, and not through other guilt, are we lost,
and only so far harmed that without hope we live in desire."
Great woe seized me at my heart when I heard him, because I knew
that people of much worth were suspended in that limbo. "Tell me,
my Master, tell me, Lord," began I, with wish to be assured of
that faith which vanquishes every error,[1] "did ever any one who
afterwards was blessed go out from here, either by his own or by
another's merit?" And he, who understood my covert speech,
answered, "I was new in this state when I saw a Mighty One come
hither crowned with sign of victory. He drew out hence the shade
of the first parent, of Abel his son, and that of Noah, of Moses
the law-giver and obedient, Abraham the patriarch, and David the
King, Israel with his father, and with his offspring, and with
Rachel, for whom he did so much, and others many; and He made
them blessed: and I would have thee know that before these, human
spirits were not saved."
[1] Wishing especially to be assured in regard to the descent of
Christ into Hell.
We ceased not going on because he spoke, but all the while were
passing through the wood, the wood I mean of crowded spirits. Nor
yet had our way been long from where I slept, when I saw a fire,
that conquered a hemisphere of darkness. We were still a little
distant from it, yet not so far that I could not partially
discern that honorable folk possessed that place. "O thou that
honorest both science and art, these, who are they, that have
such honor that from the condition of the others it sets them
apart?" And he to me, "The honorable fame of them which resounds
above in thy life wins grace in heaven that so advances them." At
this a voice was heard by me, "Honor the loftiest Poet! his shade
returns that was departed." When the voice had ceased and was
quiet, I saw four great shades coming to us: they had a semblance
neither sad nor glad. The good Master began to say, "Look at him
with that sword in hand who cometh before the three, even as
lord. He is Homer, the sovereign poet; the next who comes is
Horace, the satirist; Ovid is the third, and the last is Lucan.
Since each shares with me the name that the single voice sounded,
they do me honor, and in that do well"
Thus I saw assembled the fair school of that Lord of the loftiest
song which above the others as an eagle flies. After they had
discoursed somewhat together, they turned to me with sign of
salutation; and my Master smiled thereat. And far more of honor
yet they did me, for they made me of their band, so that I was
the sixth amid so much wit. Thus we went on as far as the light,
speaking things concerning which silence is becoming, even as was
speech there where I was.
We came to the foot of a noble castle, seven times circled by
high walls, defended round about by a fair streamlet. This we
passed as if hard ground; through seven gates I entered with
these sages; we came to a meadow of fresh verdure. People were
there with eyes slow and grave, of great authority in their
looks; they spake seldom, and with soft voices. Thus we drew
apart, on one side, into a place open, luminous, and high, so
that they all could be seen. There opposite upon the green enamel
were shown to me the great spirits, whom to have seen I inwardly
exalt myself.
I saw Electra with many companions, among whom I knew both Hector
and Aeneas, Caesar in armor, with his gerfalcon eyes; I saw
Camilla and Penthesilea on the other side, and I saw the King
Latinus, who was seated with Lavinia his daughter. I saw that
Brutus who drove out Tarquin; Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and
Cornelia; and alone, apart, I saw the Saladin. When I raised my
brow a little more, I saw the Master of those who know, seated
amid the philosophic family; all regard him, all do him honor.
Here I saw both Socrates and Plato, who before the others stand
nearest to him; Democritus, who ascribes the world to chance;
Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales, Empedocles, Heraclitus, and
Zeno; and I saw the good collector of the qualities, Dioscorides,
I mean; and I saw Orpheus, Tully, and Linus, and moral Seneca,
Euclid the geometer, and Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Avicenna, Galen,
and Averrhoes, who made the great comment. I cannot report of all
in full, because the long theme so drives me that many times
speech comes short of fact.
The company of six is reduced to two. By another way the wise
guide leads me, out from the quiet, into the air that trembles,
and I come into a region where is nothing that can give light.
CANTO V. The Second Circle, that of Carnal Sinners.--Minos.--
Shades renowned of old.--Francesca da Rimini.
Thus I descended from the first circle down into the second,
which girdles less space, and so much more woe that it goads to
wailing. There abides Minos horribly, and snarls; he examines the
sins at the entrance; he judges, and he sends according as he
entwines himself. I mean, that, when the miscreant spirit comes
there before him, it confesses itself wholly, and that discerner
of sins sees what place of Hell is for it; he girdles himself
with his tail so many times as the degrees he wills it should be
sent down. Always before him stand many of them. They go, in
turn, each to the judgment; they speak, and hear, and then are
whirled below.
"O thou that comest to the woeful inn," said Minos to me, when he
saw me, leaving the act of so great an office, "beware how thou
enterest, and to whom thou trustest thyself; let not the
amplitude of the entrance deceive thee." And my Leader to
him, "Why then dost thou cry out? Hinder not his fated going;
thus is it willed there where is power to do that which is
willed; and ask thou no more."
Now the woeful notes begin to make themselves heard; now am I
come where much lamentation smites me. I had come into a place
mute of all light, that bellows as the sea does in a tempest, if
it be combated by opposing winds. The infernal hurricane that
never rests carries along the spirits in its rapine; whirling and
smiting it molests them. When they arrive before its rushing
blast, here are shrieks, and bewailing, and lamenting; here they
blaspheme the power divine. I understood that to such torment are
condemned the carnal sinners who subject reason to appetite. And
as their wings bear along the starlings in the cold season in a
troop large and full, so that blast the evil spirits; hither,
thither, down, up it carries them; no hope ever comforts them,
not of repose, but even of less pain.
And as the cranes go singing their lays, making in air a long
line of themselves, so saw I come, uttering wails, shades borne
along by the aforesaid strife. Wherefore I said, "Master, who are
those folk whom the black air so castigates?" "The first of these
of whom thou wishest to have knowledge," said he to me then, "was
empress of many tongues. To the vice of luxury was she so
abandoned that lust she made licit in her law, to take away the
blame she had incurred. She is Semiramis, of whom it is read that
she succeeded Ninus and had been his spouse; she held the land
which the Soldan rules. That other is she who, for love, killed
herself, and broke faith to the ashes of Sichaeus. Next is
Cleopatra, the luxurious. See Helen, for whom so long a time of
ill revolved; and see the great Achilles, who at the end fought
with love. See Paris, Tristan,--" and more than a thousand shades
he showed me with his finger, and named them, whom love had
parted from our life.
After I had heard my Teacher name the dames of eld and the
cavaliers, pity overcame me, and I was well nigh bewildered. I
began, "Poet, willingly would I speak with those two that go
together, and seem to be so light upon the wind." And he to me,
"Thou shalt see when they shall be nearer to us, and do thou then
pray them by that love which leads them, and they will come."
Soon as the wind sways them toward us I lifted my voice, "O weary
souls, come speak to us, if One forbid it not."
As doves, called by desire, with wings open and steady, fly
through the air to their sweet nest, borne by their will, these
issued from the troop where Dido is, coming to us through the
malign air, so strong was the compassionate cry.
"O living creature, gracious and benign, that goest through the
lurid air visiting us who stained the world blood-red,--if the
King of the universe were a friend we would pray Him for thy
peace, since thou hast pity on our perverse ill. Of what it
pleaseth thee to hear, and what to speak, we will hear and we
will speak to you, while the wind, as now, is hushed for us. The
city where I was born sits upon the sea-shore, where the Po, with
its followers, descends to have peace. Love, that on gentle heart
quickly lays hold, seized him for the fair person that was taken
from me, and the mode still hurts me. Love, which absolves no
loved one from loving, seized me for the pleasing of him so
strongly that, as thou seest, it does not even now abandon me.
Love brought us to one death. Caina awaits him who quenched our
life." These words were borne to us from them.
Soon as I had heard those injured souls I bowed my face, and held
it down, until the Poet said to me, "What art thou thinking?"
When I replied, I began, "Alas! how many sweet thoughts, how
great desire, led these unto the woeful pass." Then I turned me
again to them, and I spoke, and began, "Francesca, thy torments
make me sad and piteous to weeping. But tell me, at the time of
the sweet sighs by what and how did love concede to you to know
the dubious desires?" And she to me, "There is no greater woe
than in misery to remember the happy time, and that thy Teacher
knows. But if to know the first root of our love thou hast so
great a longing, I will do like one who weeps and tells.
"We were reading one day, for delight, of Lancelot, how love
constrained him. We were alone and without any suspicion. Many
times that reading made us lift our eyes, and took the color from
our faces, but only one point was that which overcame us. When we
read of the longed-for smile being kissed by such a lover, this
one, who never from me shall be divided, kissed my mouth all
trembling. Galahaut was the book, and he who wrote it. That day
we read in it no farther."[1]
[1] In the Romance, it was Galahaut that prevailed on Guinevere
to give a kiss to Lancelot.
While one spirit said this the other was weeping so that through
pity I swooned, as if I had been dying, and fell as a dead body
falls.
CANTO VI. The Third Circle, that of the Gluttonous.--Cerberus.--
Ciacco.
When the mind returned, which closed itself before the pity of
these two kinsfolk, that had all confounded me with sadness, new
torments and new tormented souls I see around me wherever I move,
and howsoever I turn, and wherever I gaze.
I am in the third circle, that of the rain eternal, accursed,
cold, and heavy. Its rule and quality are never new. Coarse hail,
and foul water and snow pour down through the tenebrous air; the
earth that receives them stinks. Cerberus, a beast cruel and
monstrous, with three throats barks doglike above the people that
are here submerged. He has vermilion eyes, and a greasy and black
beard, and a big belly, and hands armed with claws: he tears the
spirits, flays them, and rends them. The rain makes them howl
like dogs; of one of their sides they make a screen for the
other; the profane wretches often turn themselves.
When Cerberus, the great worm, observed us he opened his mouths,
and showed his fangs to us; not a limb had he that he kept quiet.
And my Leader opened wide his hands, took some earth, and with
full fists threw it into the ravenous gullets. As the dog that
barking craves, and becomes quiet when he bites his food, and is
intent and fights only to devour it, such became those filthy
faces of the demon Cerberus, who so thunders at the souls that
they would fain be deaf.
We were passing over the shades whom the heavy rain subdues, and
were setting our feet upon their vain show that seems a body.
They all of them lay upon the ground, except one who raised
himself to sit, quickly as he saw us passing before him. "O thou
who art led through this Hell," he said to me, "recognize me, if
thou canst; thou wast made before I was unmade." And I to him,
"The anguish which thou hast perchance withdraws thee from my
memory, so that it seems not that I ever saw thee. But tell me
who thou art, that in a place so woeful art set, and with such a
punishment, that if any other is greater none is so displeasing."
And he to me, "Thy city which is so full of envy, that already
the sack runs over, held me in it, in the serene life. You
citizens called me Ciacco; [1] for the damnable sin of gluttony,
as thou seest, I am broken by the rain. And I, wretched soul, am
not alone, for all these endure like punishment, for like sin,"
and more he said not. I answered him, "Ciacco, thy trouble so
weighs upon me, that it invites me to weeping; but tell me, if
thou canst, to what will come the citizens of the divided city;
if any one in it is just; and tell me the reason why such great
discord has assailed it."
[1] Ciacco, in popular speech, signifies a hog.
And he to me, "After long contention they will come to blood, and
the savage party will chase out the other with great injury.
Thereafter within three suns it behoves this to fall, and the
other to surmount through the force of one who even now is
tacking. It will hold high its front long time, keeping the other
under heavy burdens, however it may lament and be shamed thereat.
Two men are just, but there they are not heeded; Pride, Envy,
Avarice are the three sparks that have inflamed their hearts."[1]
Here he set end unto the lamentable sound.
[1] This prophecy relates to the dissensions and violence of the
parties of the Whites and the Blacks by which Florence was rent.
The "savage party" was that of the Whites, who were mainly
Ghibellines. The "one who even now is tacking" was the Pope,
Boniface VIII., who was playing fast and loose with both. Who the
"two just men" were is unknown.
And I to him, "Still I would that thou teach me, and that of more
speech thou make a gift to me. Farinata and the Tegghiaio who
were so worthy, Jacopo Rusticucci, Arrigo, and the Mosca, and the
rest who set their minds on well-doing, tell me where they are,
and cause that I may know them, for great desire constrains me to
learn if Heaven sweeten them, or Hell envenom.
And he, "They are among the blacker souls: a different sin weighs
them down to the bottom; if thou so far descendest, thou canst
see them. But when thou shalt be in the sweet world I pray thee
that thou bring me to the memory of others. More I say not to
thee, and more I answer thee not." His straight eyes he twisted
then awry, looked at me a little, and then bent his head, and
fell with it level with the other blind.
And the Leader said to me, "He wakes no more this side the sound
of the angelic trump. When the hostile Sovereign shall come, each
one will find again his dismal tomb, will take again his flesh
and his shape, will hear that which through eternity reechoes."
Thus we passed along with slow steps through the foul mixture of
the shades and of the rain, touching a little on the future life.
Wherefore I said, "Master, these torments will they increase
after the great sentence, or will they become less, or will they
be just as burning?" And he to me, "Return to thy science, which
declares that the more perfect a thing is the more it feels the
good, and so the pain. Though this accursed people never can
attain to true perfection, it expects thereafter to be more than
now."
We took a circling course along that road, speaking far more than
I repeat; and came to the point where the descent is. Here we
found Pluto,[1] the great enemy.
[1] Pluto appears here not as Hades, the god of the lower world,
but in his character as the giver of wealth.
CANTO VII. The Fourth Circle, that of the Avaricious and the
Prodigal.--Pluto.--Fortune.--The Styx.--The Fifth Circle, that of
the Wrathful and the Sullen.
"Pape Satan, pape Satan aleppe,"--began Pluto with his clucking
voice. And that gentle Sage, who knew everything, said to comfort
me, "Let not thy fear hurt thee; for whatso power he have shall
not take from thee the descent of this rock." Then he turned to
that swollen lip and said, "Be silent, accursed wolf! inwardly
consume thyself with thine own rage: not without cause is this
going to the abyss; it is willed on high, there where Michael did
vengeance on the proud adultery."[1] As sails swollen by the wind
fall in a heap when the mast snaps, so fell to earth the cruel
beast.
[1] Adultery, in the sense of infidelity to God.
Thus we descended into the fourth hollow, taking more of the
woeful bank that gathers in the evil of the whole universe. Ah,
Justice of God! Who heapeth up so many new travails and penalties
as I saw? And why doth our sin so waste us? As doth the wave,
yonder upon Charybdis, which is broken on that which it
encounters, so it behoves that here the people counterdance.
Here saw I people more than elsewhere many, and from one side and
the other with great howls rolling weights by force of chest.
They struck against each other, and then just there each turned,
rolling backward, crying, "Why keepest thou?" and "Why flingest
thou away?" Thus they turned through the dark circle on either
hand to the opposite point, still crying out their opprobrious
verse; then each, when he had come through his half circle,
wheeled round to the other joust.
And I, who had my heart well-nigh pierced through, said, "My
Master, now declare to me what folk is this, and if all these
tonsured ones on our left were clerks."
And he to me, "All of these were so asquint in mind in the first
life that they made no spending there with measure. Clearly
enough their voices bay it out, when they come to the two points
of the circle where the contrary sin divides them. These were
clerks who have no hairy covering on their head, and Popes and
Cardinals, in whom avarice practices its excess."
And I, "Master, among such as these I ought surely to recognize
some who were polluted with these evils."
And he to me, "Vain thought thou harborest; the undiscerning life
that made them foul, to all recognition now makes them dim.
Forever will they come to the two buttings; these will rise from
the sepulchre with closed fist, and these with shorn hair.
Ill-giving and ill-keeping have taken from them the fair world,
and set them to this scuffle; such as it is, I adorn not words
for it. Now canst thou, son, see the brief jest of the goods that
are committed unto Fortune, for which the human race so scramble;
for all the gold that is beneath the moon, or that ever was, of
these weary souls could not make a single one repose."
"Master," said I to him, "now tell me further; this Fortune, on
which thou touchest for me, what is it, that hath the goods of
the world so in its clutches?"
And he to me, "O creatures foolish, how great is that ignorance
that harms you! I would have thee now take in my judgment of her.
He whose wisdom transcendeth all made the heavens, and gave them
their guides, so that every part on every part doth shine,
equally distributing the light. In like wise for the splendors of
the world, He ordained a general ministress and guide, who should
ever and anon transfer the vain goods from race to race, and from
one blood to another, beyond the resistance of human wit.
Wherefore one race rules, and the other languishes, pursuant to
her judgment, which is occult as the snake in the grass. Your
wisdom hath no withstanding of her: she provides, judges and
maintains her realm, as theirs the other gods. Her permutations
have no truce; necessity compels her to be swift, so often cometh
he who obtains a turn. This is she who is so set upon the cross,
even by those who ought to give her praise, giving her blame
amiss and ill report. But she is blessed and hears this not. With
the other Primal Creatures glad she turns her sphere, and blessed
she rejoices. But now let us descend to greater woe. Already
every star sinks that was rising when I set out, and too long
stay is forbidden."
We crossed the circle to the other bank, above a fount that boils
and pours down through a cleft that proceeds from it. The water
was far darker than perse;[1] and we, in company with the dusky
waves, entered down through a strange way. A marsh it makes, that
is named Styx, this dismal little stream, when it has descended
to the foot of the malign gray slopes. And I, who stood intent to
gaze, saw muddy people in that swamp, all naked and with look of
hurt. They were smiting each other, not only with hands, but with
head, and with chest, and with feet, mangling one another
piecemeal with their teeth.
[1] Purple-black.
The good Master said, "Son, now thou seest the souls of those
whom anger overcame; and likewise I would have thee believe for
certain that beneath the water are folk who sigh, and make this
water bubble at the surface, as thine eye tells thee wherever it
turns. Fixed in the slime, they say, 'Sullen were we in the sweet
air that by the Sun is gladdened, bearing within ourselves the
sluggish fume; now we are sullen in the black mire.' This hymn
they gurgle in their throats, for they cannot speak with entire
words."[1]
[1] The sin here punished is that known to the Middle Ages as
acedia, or accidie,--slackness in good works, and spiritual gloom
and despondency. In the Parson's Tale Chaucer says: "Envie and
ire maken bitternesse in heart, which bitternesse is mother of
accidie."
Thus we circled a great arc of the foul fen, between the dry bank
and the slough, with eyes turned on those who guzzle the mire. We
came at length to the foot of a tower.
CANTO VIII. The Fifth Circle.--Phlegyas and his boat.--Passage of
the Styx.--Filippo Argenti.--The City of Dis.--The demons refuse
entrance to the poets.
I say, continuing, that, long before we were at the foot of the
high tower, our eyes went upward to its top because of two
flamelets that we saw set there, and another giving sigual back
from so far that hardly could the eye reach it. And I turned me
to the Sea of all wisdom; I said, "This one, what says it? and
what answers that other fire? and who are they that make it?" And
he to me, "Upon the foul waves already thou mayest discern that
which is expected, if the fume of the marsh hide it not from
thee."
Bowstring never sped arrow from itself that ran so swift a course
through the air, as a very little boat which I saw coming through
the water toward us at that instant, under the direction of a
single ferryman, who was crying out, "Art thou then come, fell
soul?"
"Phlegyas, Phlegyas, this time thou criest out in vain," said my
Lord; "longer thou shalt not have us than only while crossing the
slough." As one who listens to some great deceit that has been
practiced on him, and then chafes at it, such became Phlegyas in
his stifled anger.
My Leader descended into the bark and then he made me enter after
him, and only when I was in did it seem laden. Soon as my Leader
and I were in the boat, the antique prow goes its way, cutting
more of the water than it is wont with others.
While we were running through the dead channel, before me showed
himself one full of mud, and said, "Who art thou that comest
before the hour?" And I to him, "If I come I stay not; but thou,
who art thou that art become so foul?" He answered, "Thou seest
that I am one who weeps." And I to him, "With weeping and with
wailing, accursed spirit, do thou remain, for I know thee
although thou art all filthy." Then he stretched to the boat both
his hands, whereat the wary Master thrust him back, saying,
"Begone there, with the other dogs!" Then with his arms he
clasped my neck, kissed my face, and said, "Disdainful soul,
blessed be she who bore thee! This one was an arrogant person in
the world; no goodness is there that adorns his memory; therefore
is his shade so furious here. How many now up there are held
great kings who shall stand here like swine in mire, leaving of
themselves horrible dispraises." And I, "Master, I should much
like to see him ducked in this broth before we depart from the
lake." And he to me, "Ere the shore allows thee to see it thou
shalt be satisfied; it will be fitting that thou enjoy such a
desire." After this a little I saw such rending of him by the
muddy folk that I still praise God therefor, and thank Him for
it. All cried, "At Filippo Argenti!" and the raging florentine
spirit turned upon himself with his teeth. Here we left him; so
that I tell no more of him.
But on my ears there smote a wailing, whereat forward intent I
open wide my eye. And the good Master said, "Now, son, the city
draws near that is named Dis, with its heavy citizens, with its
great throng." And I, "Master, already in the valley therewithin
I clearly discern its mosques vermilion, as if issuing from
fire." And he said to me, "The eternal fire that blazes within
them displays them red as thou seest in this nether Hell."
We at last arrived within the deep ditches that encompass that
disconsolate city. The walls seemed to me to be of iron. Not
without first making a great circuit did we come to a place where
the ferryman loudly shouted to us, "Out with you, here is the
entrance."
Upon the gates I saw more than a thousand of those rained down
from heaven who angrily were saying, "Who is this, that without
death goes through the realm of the dead folk?" And my wise
Master made a sign of wishing to speak secretly with them. Then
they shut in a little their great scorn, and said, "Come thou
alone, and let him be gone who so boldly entered on this realm.
Alone let him return on the mad path: let him try if he can; for
thou, who hast escorted him through so dark a region, shalt
remain here."
Think, Reader, if I was discomforted at the sound of the accursed
words, for I did not believe ever to return hither.[1]
[1] To this world.
"O my dear Leader, who more than seven times hast renewed
assurance in me, and drawn me from deep peril that stood
confronting me, leave me not," said I, "thus undone; and, if the
going farther onward be denied us, let us together retrace our
footprints quickly." And that Lord who had led me thither said to
me, "Fear not, for no one can take from us our onward way, by
Such an one it is given to us. But here await me, and comfort thy
dejected spirit and feed on good hope, for I will not leave thee
in the nether world."
So the sweet Father goes away, and here abandons me, and I remain
in suspense; and yes and no contend within my head. I could not
hear what he set forth to them, but he had not staid there long
with them, when each ran vying back within. These our adversaries
closed the gates on the breast of my Lord, who remained without,
and returned to me with slow steps. He held his eyes upon the
ground, and his brow was shorn of all hardihood, and he said in
sighs, "Who hath denied to me the houses of woe?" And he said to
me, "Thou, because I am wroth, be not dismayed, for I shall win
the strife, whoever circle round within for the defence. This
their insolence is not new, for of old they used it at a less
secret gate, which still is found without a bolt. Above it thou
didst see the dead inscription; and already on this side of it
descends the steep, passing without escort through the circles,
One such that by him the city shall be opened to us."
CANTO IX. The City of Dis.--Erichtho.--The Three Furies.--The
Heavenly Messenger.--The Sixth Circle, that of the Heresiarchs.
That color which cowardice painted outwardly on me when I saw my
Guide turn back, repressed more speedily his own new color. He
stopped attentive, like a man that listens, for the eye could not
lead him far through the black air, and through the dense fog.
"Yet it must be for us to win the fight," began he, "unless--Such
an one offered herself to us.[1] Oh how slow it seems till Some
one here arrive!"[2]
[1] Beatrice.
[2] The messenger from Heaven, referred to in the last verses of
the last canto.
I saw well how he covered up the beginning with the rest that
came after, which were words different from the first. But
nevertheless his speech gave me fear, because I drew his broken
phrase perchance to a worse meaning than it held.
"Into this depth of the dismal shell does any one ever descend
from the first grade who has for penalty only hope cut off?"[1]
This question I put, and he answered me, "Seldom it happens that
any one of us maketh the journey on which I am going. It is true
that another time I was conjured down here by that cruel Erichtho
who was wont to call back shades into their bodies. Short while
had my flesh been bare of me, when she made me enter within that
wall in order to drag out for her a spirit from the circle of
Judas. That is the lowest place, and the darkest, and the
farthest from the Heaven that encircles all. Well do I know the
road: therefore assure thyself. This marsh which breathes out the
great stench girds round about the woeful city wherein now we
cannot enter without anger."
[1] Dante asks for assurance that Virgil, whose station is in
Limbo, "the first grade," knows the way.
And more he said, but I hold it not in mind because my eye had
wholly attracted me toward the high tower with the ruddy summit,
where in an instant were uprisen suddenly three infernal furies,
stained with blood, who had the limbs of women and their action,
and were girt with greenest hydras. Little serpents and cerastes
they had for hair, wherewith their savage brows were bound.
And he, who well knew the handmaids of the queen of the eternal
lamentation, said to me, "Behold the fell Erinnyes; this is
Megaera on the left side, she who weeps on the right is Alecto,
Tisiphone is in the middle," and therewith he was silent.
With her nails each was tearing her breast, they beat themselves
with their hands, and cried out so loud that I pressed close to
the Poet through dread. "Let Medusa come, so we will make him of
stone," they all said, looking down. "Ill was it we avenged not
on Theseus his assault."
"Turn thy back, and keep thy sight closed, for if the Gorgon show
herself, and thou shouldest see her, no return upward would there
ever be." Thus said the Master, and he himself turned me, and did
not so trust to my hands that with his own he did not also
blindfold me.
O ye who have sound understanding, regard the doctrine that is
hidden under the veil of the strange verses.
And already was coming across the turbid waves a tumult of a
sound full of terror at which both the shores trembled. Not
otherwise it was than of a wind, impetuous through the opposing
heats, that strikes the forest, and without any stay shatters the
branches, beats down and carries them away; forward, laden with
dust, it goes superb, and makes the wild beasts and the shepherds
fly.
My eyes he loosed, and said, "Now direct the nerve of sight
across the ancient scum, there yonder where that fume is most
bitter."
As frogs before the hostile snake all scatter through the water,
till each huddles on the ground, I saw more than a thousand
destroyed souls flying thus before one, who at the ford was
passing over the Styx with dry feet. From his face he removed
that thick air, waving his left hand oft before him, and only
with that trouble seemed he weary. Well I perceived that he was
sent from Heaven, and I turned me to the Master, and he made sign
that I should stand quiet and bow down unto him. Ah, how full of
disdain he seemed to me! He reached the gate and with a little
rod he opened it, for there was no withstanding.
"O outcasts from Heaven, folk despised," began he upon the
horrible threshold, "wherefore is this overweening harbored in
you? Why do ye kick against that will from which its end can
never be cut short, and which many a time hath increased your
grief? What avails it to butt against the fates? Your Cerberus,
if ye remember well, still bears his chin and his throat peeled
for that." Then he turned back upon the filthy road and said no
word to us, but wore the semblance of a man whom other care
constrains and stings, than that of him who is before him.
And we moved our feet toward the city, confident after his holy
words. Within we entered without any strife, and I, who had
desire to observe the condition which such a stronghold locks in,
when I was within, sent my eyes round about; and I see on every
hand a great plain full of woe and of cruel torment.
As at Arles, where the Rhone stagnates, as at Pola, near the
Quarnaro that shuts in Italy and bathes its borders, sepulchres
make all the place uneven; so did they here on every side, saving
that the manner was more bitter here; for among the tombs flames
were scattered, by which they were so intensely kindled that no
art requires iron more so. All their lids were lifted; and such
dire laments were issuing forth from them as truly seemed of
wretches and of sufferers.
And I, "Master, who are these folk that, buried within those
coffers, make themselves heard with their woeful sighs?" And he
to me, "Here are the heresiarchs with their followers of every
sect, and the tombs are much more laden than thou thinkest. Like
with like is buried here, and the monuments are more and less
hot."
And when he to the right hand had turned, we passed between the
torments and the high battlements.
CANTO X. The Sixth Circle: Heresiarchs.--Farinata degli
Uberti.-Cavalcante Cavalcanti.--Frederick II.
Now along a narrow path between the wall of the city and the
torments my Master goeth on, and I behind his shoulders.
"O Virtue supreme," I began, "that through the impious circles
turnest me, according to thy pleasure, speak to me and satisfy my
desires. The folk that are lying in the sepulchres, can they be
seen? All the lids are now lifted, and no one keepeth guard." And
he to me, "All shall be locked in when from Jehoshaphat they
shall here return with the bodies which they have left on earth.
Upon this side Epicurus with all his followers, who make the soul
mortal with the body, have their burial place. Therefore as to
the demand that thou makest of me, thou shalt soon be satisfied
here within; and also as to the desire concerning which thou art
silent to me." And I, "Good Leader, I hold not my heart hidden
from thee except in order to speak little; and not only now to
that hast thou disposed me."
"O Tuscan, who through the city of fire alive art going, speaking
thus modestly, may it please thee to stop in this place. Thy
speech makes manifest that thou art native of that noble
fatherland to which perchance I was too molestful." Suddenly this
sound issued from one of the coffers, wherefore I drew, in fear,
a little nearer to my Leader. And he said to me, "Turn, what dost
thou? Behold Farinata who hath uprisen; thou shalt see him all
from the girdle up."
I had already fixed my face on his, and he straightened himself
up with breast and front as though he had Hell in great scorn.
And the bold and ready hands of my Leader pushed me among the
sepulchres to him, saying, "Let thy words be choice."
When I was at the foot of his tomb, he looked at me a little, and
then, as though disdainful, asked me, "Who were thy ancestors?"
I, who was desirous to obey, concealed them not, but disclosed
them all to him; whereon he raised his brows a little up, then
said, "Fiercely were they adverse to me, and to my fathers, and
to my party, so that twice I scattered them." [1] "If they were
driven out, they returned from every side," replied I to him,
"both one and the other time, but yours have not learned well
that art."
[1] Dante's ancestors were Guelphs.
Then there arose, to view uncovered down to the chin, a shade at
the side of this one; I think that it had risen on its knees.
Round about me it looked, as if it had desire to see if another
were with me, but when its expectancy was quite extinct, weeping
it said, "If through this blind dungeon thou goest through
loftiness of genius, my son, where is he? and why is he not with
thee?" And I to him, "Of myself I come not; he who waits yonder
leads me through here, whom perchance your Guido held in
scorn."[1]
[1] Guido Cavalcanti was charged with the same sin of unbelief as
his father. Dante regards this as a sin specially contrary to
right reason, typified by Virgil.
His words and the mode of the punishment had already read to me
the name of this one, wherefore my answer was so full.
Suddenly straightening up, he cried, "How didst thou say, 'he
held'? lives he not still? doth not the sweet light strike his
eyes?" When he took note of some delay that I made before
answering, he fell again supine, and forth appeared no more.
But that other magnanimous one, at whose instance I had stayed,
changed not aspect, nor moved his neck, nor bent his side. "And
if," he said, continuing his first words, "they have ill learned
that art, it torments me more than this bed. But the face of the
lady who ruleth here will not be rekindled fifty times ere thou
shalt know how much that art weighs. And, so mayest thou return
unto the sweet world, tell me wherefore is that people so
pitiless against my race in its every law?" Then I to him, "The
rout and the great carnage that colored the Arbia red cause such
orison to be made in our temple." After he had, sighing, shaken
his head, "In that I was not alone," he said, "nor surely without
cause would I have moved with the rest; but I was alone,--there
[1] where it was agreed by every one to lay Florence waste,--he
who defended her with open face." "Ah! so hereafter may your seed
repose," I prayed to him, "loose for me that knot, which here has
entangled my judgment. It seems, if I rightly hear, that ye
foresee that which time is bringing with him, and as to the
present have another way." "We see," he said, "like those who
have feeble light, the things that are far from us, so much still
shineth on us the supreme Leader; when they draw near, or are,
our intelligence is all vain, and, if some one report not to us,
we know nothing of your human state. Therefore thou canst
comprehend that our knowledge will be utterly dead from that
moment when the gate of the future shall he closed." Then, as
compunctious for my fault I said, "Now wilt thou therefore tell
that fallen one that his son is still conjoined with the living,
and if just now I was dumb to answer, make him know that I was so
because I was still thinking in that error which you have solved
for me." [2]
[1] At Empoli, in 1260, after the defeat of the Florentine
Guelphs at Montaperti on the Arbia.
[2] Guido Cavalcanti died in August, 1300; his death, being near
at hand at the time of Dante's journey, was not known to his
father.
And now my Master was calling me back, wherefore I prayed the
spirit more hastily that he would tell me who was with him. He
said to me, "Here with more than a thousand do I lie; here within
is the second Frederick and the Cardinal,[1] and of the others I
am silent."
[1] Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, a fierce Ghibelline, who was
reported as saying, "If there be a soul I have lost it for the
Ghibellines."
Thereon he hid himself; and I toward the ancient Poet turned my
steps, reflecting on that speech which seemed hostile to me. He
moved on, and then, thus going, he said to me, "Why art thou so
distraught?" And I satisfied his demand. "Let thy memory preserve
that which thou hast heard against thyself," commanded me that
Sage, "and now attend to this," and he raised his finger. "When
thou shalt be in presence of the sweet radiance of her whose
beautiful eye sees everything, from her thou shalt learn the
journey of thy life." Then to the left he turned his step.
We left the wall, and went toward the middle by a path which
strikes into a valley that even up there its stench made
displeasing.
CANTO XI. The Sixth Circle: Heretics.--Tomb of Pope Anastasins.--
Discourse of Virgil on the divisions of the lower Hell.
Upon the edge of a high bank formed by great rocks broken in a
circle, we came above a more cruel pen. And here, because of the
horrible excess of the stench that the deep abyss throws out, we
drew aside behind the lid of a great tomb, whereon I saw an
inscription which said, "Pope Anastasius I hold, he whom Photinus
drew from the right way."
"Our descent must needs be slow so that the sense may first
accustom itself a little to the dismal blast, and then will be no
heed of it." Thus the Master, and I said to him, "Some
compensation do thou find that the time pass not lost." And be,
"Behold, I am thinking of that. My son, within these rocks," he
began to say, "are three circlets from grade to grade like those
thou leavest. All are full of accursed spirits; but, in order
that hereafter sight only may suffice thee, hear how and
wherefore they are in constraint.
"Of every malice that wins hate in heaven injury is the end, and
every such end afflicts others either by force or by fraud. But
because fraud is the peculiar sin of man, it most displeaseth
God; and therefore the fraudulent are the lower, and more woe
assails them.
"The first circle[1] is wholly of the violent; but because
violence can be done to three persons, in three rounds it is
divided and constructed. Unto God, unto one's self, unto one's
neighbor may violence be done; I mean unto them and unto their
belongings, as thou shalt hear in plain discourse. By violence
death and grievous wounds are inflicted on one's neighbor; and on
his substance ruins, burnings, and harmful robberies. Wherefore
homicides, and every one who smites wrongfully, devastators and
freebooters, all of them the first round torments, in various
troops.
[1] The first circle below, the seventh in the order of Hell.
"Man may lay violent hands upon himself and on his goods; and,
therefore, in the second round must needs repent without avail
whoever deprives himself of your world, gambles away and
squanders his property, and laments there where he ought to be
joyous.[2]
[2] Laments on earth because of violence done to what should have
made him happy.
"Violence may be done to the Deity, by denying and blaspheming
Him in heart, and despising nature and His bounty: and therefore
the smallest round seals with its signet both Sodom and Cahors,
and him who despising God speaks from his heart.
"Fraud, by which every conscience is bitten, man may practice on
one that confides in him, or on one that owns no confidence. This
latter mode seemeth to destroy only the bond of love that nature
makes; wherefore in the second circle[1] nestle hypocrisy,
flatteries, and sorcerers, falsity, robbery, and simony, panders,
barrators, and such like filth.
[1] The second circle below, the eighth in the order of Hell.
"By the other mode that love is forgotten which nature makes, and
also that which is thereafter added, whereby special confidence
is created. Hence, in the smallest circle, where is the centre of
the universe, on which Dis sits, whoso betrays is consumed
forever."
And I, "Master, full clearly doth thy discourse proceed, and full
well divides this pit, and the people that possess it; but, tell
me, they of the fat marsh, and they whom the wind drives, and
they whom the rain beats, and they who encounter with such sharp
tongues, why are they not punished within the ruddy city if God
be wroth with them? and if he be not so, why are they in such
plight?"
And he said to me, "Wherefore so wanders thine understanding
beyond its wont? or thy mind, where else is it gazing? Dost thou
not remember those words with which thine Ethics treats in full
of the three dispositions that Heaven abides not; in continence,
malice, and mad bestiality, and how incontinence less offends
God, and incurs less blame? [1] If thou considerest well this
doctrine, and bringest to mind who are those that up above,
outside,[2] suffer punishment, thou wilt see clearly why from
these felons they are divided, and why less wroth the divine
vengeance hammers them."
[1] Aristotle, Ethics, vii. 1.
[2] Outside the walls of the city of Dis.
"O Sun that healest every troubled vision, thou dost content me
so, when thou explainest, that doubt, not less than knowledge,
pleaseth me; yet return a little back," said I, "there where thou
saidst that usury offends the Divine Goodness, and loose the
knot."
"Philosophy," he said to me, "points out to him who understands
it, not only in one part alone, how Nature takes her course from
the Divine Intellect and from its art. And if thou note thy
Physics [1] well thou wilt find after not many pages that your
art follows her so far as it can, as the disciple does the
master, so that your art is as it were grandchild of God. By
means of these two, if thou bringest to mind Genesis at its
beginning, it behoves mankind to obtain their livelihood and to
thrive. But because the usurer takes another course, he despises
Nature in herself, and in her follower, since upon other thing he
sets his hope. But follow me now, for to go on pleaseth me; for
the Fishes are gliding on the horizon, and the Wain lies quite
over Corus,[2] and far yonder is the way down the cliff."
[1] Aristotle, Physics, ii. 2.
[2] The time indicated is about 4, or from 4 to 5 A.M. Corus, the
name of the north-west wind, here stands for that quarter of the
heavens.
CANTO XII. First round of the Seventh Circle; those who do
violence to others; Tyrants and Homicides.--The Minotaur.--The
Centaurs.--Chiron.--Nessus.--The River of Boiling Blood, and the
Sinners in it.
The place where we came to descend the bank was rugged, and,
because of what was there besides, such that every eye would be
shy of it.
As is that ruin which, on this side of Trent, struck the Adige on
its flank, either by earthquake or by failure of support,--for
from the top of the mountain whence it moved, to the plain, the
cliff has so fallen down that it might give a path to one who was
above,--so was the descent of that ravine. And on the edge of the
broken chasm lay stretched out the infamy of Crete, that was
conceived in the false cow. And when he saw us he bit himself
even as one whom wrath rends inwardly. My Sage cried out toward
him, "Perchance thou believest that here is the Duke of Athens
who up in the world brought death to thee? Get thee gone, beast,
for this one comes not instructed by thy sister, but he goes to
behold your punishments."
As a bull that breaks away at the instant he has now received his
mortal stroke, and cannot go, but plunges hither and thither, the
Minotaur I saw do the like.
And that wary one cried out, "Run to the pass; while he is raging
it is well that thou descend." So we took our way down over the
discharge of those stones, which often moved under my feet
because of the novel burden.
I was going along thinking, and he said, "Thou thinkest perhaps
on this ruin which is guarded by that bestial with which I just
now quenched. Now would I have thee know that the other time when
I descended hither into the nether hell, this cliff had not yet
fallen. But in truth, if I discern clearly, a little ere He came,
who levied the great spoil on Dis from the supernal circle, in
all its parts the deep foul valley trembled so that I thought the
universe had felt the love by which, as some believe, oft times
the world has been converted into chaos:[1] and, at that moment,
this ancient cliff here and elsewhere made this downfall. But fix
thine eyes below, for the river of blood is near, in which boils
whoso doth harm to others by violence."
[1] Empedocles taught, as Dante may have learned from Aristotle,
that Love and Hate were the forces by which the elements of which
the world is composed were united and dissociated. The effort of
Love was to draw all things into a simple perfect sphere, by
which the common order of the world would be brought to chaos.
Oh blind cupidity, both guilty and mad, that so spurs us in the
brief life, and then, in the eternal, steeps us so ill!
I saw a broad ditch, bent in an arc, like one that embraces all
the plain; according as my Guide had said. And between the foot
of the bank and it, in a file were running Centaurs armed with
arrows, as they were wont in the world to go to the chase. Seeing
us descending, all stopped, and from the troop three detached
themselves, with bows and arrows first selected. And one shouted
from afar, "To what torment are ye coming, ye who descend the
slope? Tell it from there; if not, I draw the bow." My Master
said, "We will make answer unto Chiron near you there: ill was it
that thy will was ever thus hasty."
Then he touched me, and said, "That is Nessus, who died for the
beautiful Dejanira, and he himself wrought vengeance for himself;
and that one in the middle, who is gazing on his breast, is the
great Chiron who nurtured Achilles. That other is Pholus, who was
so full of wrath. Round about the ditch they go by thousands
shooting with their arrows what soul lifts itself from the blood
more than its guilt has allotted it."
We drew near to those fleet wild beasts. Chiron took a shaft, and
with the notch put his beard backward upon his jaw. When he had
uncovered his great mouth he said to his companions, "Are ye
aware that the one behind moves what he touches? so are not wont
to do the feet of the dead." And my good Leader, who was now at
his breast, where the two natures are conjoined, replied, "Truly
he is alive, and thus all alone it behoves me to show him the
dark valley: necessity brings him hither and not delight. One
withdrew from singing alleluiah who committed unto me this new
office; he is no robber, nor I a thievish spirit. But, by that
power through which I move my steps along so savage a road, give
to us one of thine, to whom we may be close, that he may show us
where the ford is, and may carry this one on his back, for he is
not a spirit who can go through the air."
Chiron turned upon his right breast, and said to Nessus, "Turn,
and guide them thus, and if another troop encounter you, make it
give way."
We moved on with the trusty escort along the edge of the crimson
boiling, in which the boiled were making loud shrieks. I saw folk
under it up to the brow, and the great Centaur said, "These are
tyrants who gave themselves to blood and pillage. Here they weep
their pitiless offenses: here is Alexander, and cruel Dionysius
who caused Sicily to have woeful years. And that front which hath
such black hair is Azzolino, and that other who is blond is
Opizzo of Esti, who in truth was slain by his stepson up there in
the world."
Then I turned me to the Poet, and he said, "Let him now be
first, and I second." A little further on the Centaur stopped
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